Nail Fungus Update, February 2016

Products used: Coconut oil, tea tree oil, kerasal nail and oregano oil – but used one at a time for a month each

After trying the mixture of the tea tree oil, oregano oil and coconut oil for a while, I became tired and impatient, and sort of lost my motivation to keep things scientific. 🙁

I decided to try each product I had been using individually, to see how effective they were on their own.

At some point, I was applying something that wasn’t working. The fungus came back with a vengeance! However, I didn’t even know that it was happening until I started using something that DID work. Once I did, it totally gobbled up the infected tissue quickly.

I was really confused by this. I was watching the nail bed recede and I kept clipping away the nail. My heart sank! I thought, am I somehow feeding the fungus? No. The damage had already been done earlier, but it was invisible. It didn’t become apparent until I switched to the REAL antifungal which started doing its work. What was happening was actually a good thing and I didn’t see it.

Because of this confusion, I never figured out exactly what the ‘good’ thing was! And because of that, I was in for several more months of experimentation.

Comments 14

Thank you for your update, and for your honesty. I really appreciate it. I was just given a prescription for Jublia, and when I got home, I was disgusted to see that the cure rate is less than 20%, and the two vials of medication the Dr. prescribed me were going to cost OVER $1,200. Yes, more than a thousand dollars. What tripe. Thank you for helping people to come up with a better, cheaper way.

Hi John,
Inspiring reading here so thanks!
In light of your most recent experiments / findings are you now thinking that to treat the x 3 oils and K. Nail mixture should continue to be used together each day, or just K. Nail on it’s own?

Hi! I will be updating this weekend. I have made a couple changes to make this treatment easier, more effective and cheaper. I just wanted to make absolutely sure it worked before I recommended it. Come back on Sunday! 🙂

Hi John, Elle back again… I’m really embarrassed about how my toenails look as we enter into the summer (i’m in the south). I am considering putting Keryflex nail over my toenails – apparently “antimicrobial solutions” will still go through the porous keryflex material. Can you shed any light on whether you think the treatment would still work?

Hi Elle, I suppose I wouldn’t myself, since anything you put over your nails is going to decrease the porosity to a certain degree. But it’s a quick way to get a decent appearance without having to wait and so if that’s important because of summer, then you be the judge (readers, this is a product that they only have the podiatrist’s office which is sort of like a fancy set of fake nails for people with toenail fungus).

Hi, yes they are growing over the bumps now. This is basically just what your nail bed looks like without a nail on it. I was kind of worried that they wouldn’t reattach properly and I would be permanently disfigured, but they are growing in fine. Update coming soon.

Thanks for the update John. Kerasalnail has really improved my battle with toenail fungus.
I have a question though – how do you know when to stop cutting the toenails back? My nail plate is no longer raised and I would say my nails look like yours at week 35 (I am 16 weeks in to treatment – much less severe case than yours). Should I keep using the products and let the nail grow out? I’m confused. Did your nails re attach to the nail plates as they grew out?
Thanks for your time! All the best in your fungal battle.

I’ve started the other combo (tea tree + oregano oil), but I “heat treat” my nails whenever I get out of the shower or clean them. I take a blow dryer and aim it at each affected nail, through a hole I’ve made in a thick piece of cardboard. Once the nail is heated (as in I feel a tiny bit of discomfort), I move to a different spot on the nail, or switch nails. I do three rounds of this heat treatment to dry my nail out before putting the oils on top. I am also taking a probiotic supplement just in case I have excess yeast inside.

I’m going to add the treatment you mentioned here to the routine. Thanks for sharing. I’ve just started in the beginning of Feb. so I don’t have as much progress to report, although from the basic pictures, it appears that there has been some growth.

One thing I did notice is that once I started heat treating + doing the oil, the skin around the infected nails began to itch crazy. I guess the fungus tried to “run”. I am using a skin anti-fungal solution (FungiCure) for my skin, just so that I catch that. Even though the itching and visible evidence of the skin stuff is gone, I’m still using it every time I treat my nail. With FungiCure I haven’t seen dried out skin.

After trying the combo of coconut oil, tea tree oil and oil of oregano and seeing a slight improvement, but drying out so much of the skin around my nails and toughening the skin around my nails so much I developed serious calluses on two of my nails, I decided to just use Kerasil Nail one daily. I also stopped the tea tree oil and oil of oregano and just used coconut oil around my nails and that seemed to help with the drying and callus formation. It’s been several months and I’ve had to cut down my two big toe nails almost to the quick, but the nails that are growing in aren’t weird or discolored or thick with fungus. I , too, think the Kerasil has helped the most. Plus, using fresh, clean socks as soon as they get sweaty. I also scrub my toenails with baking soda when I wash them and that seems to help with the calluses.

Thanks for you updates. I would have never known about Kerasil unless you talked about it.